Christmas 2008, Volume 1

I suppose the best way to share photos and thoughts from this Christmas season is in installments. After all, I'm still experiencing it. We're on vacation in Georgia right now with my side of the family, so we're still in the midst of our holiday extravaganza.

So I'll begin with pictures from the MorningStar Church Christmas Mixer and 3rd Annual Santa's Softball Spectacular. Catchy little name, huh? Anyway, our friend Kim Durham was there taking random shots (in between cheering for her hubby Jerry on Tony's winning team, of course), and she captured some really great pics.

Catching Up

It's 11:05 p.m. on the night of Christmas, and most everyone else is in bed. I have some laundry to do, so I figured I'd use the time between loads to catch up my blog by posting photos I've taken over the last couple of months that I somehow never had time to share. So we're going way back, readers, but I promise not to get wordy in my explanation of what everything is, and I won't include every single thing. That could get long. And I'm saving the events of this wonderful Christmas week for their own post . . . or posts. Lots of cool stuff to think and write about this year. So here we go . . .

Here's the Byrd/Coats gang on Halloween.


Next up are a few from Thanksgiving, which we spent in Atlanta with Tony's side of the family.

Pretty Byrd girls - Jessica, Katharine, and Caroline ...


Matt, Jacob, and Mom ...



Caroline and Nathan, Kelly and Jacob, and Tony and me ...









Ellis and Gillian...


The night we got home from our Thanksgiving trip, the girls and I went to see my dear friend Neal Coomer in a show at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. It was called "The Witnesses", and it was fabulous. Neal has always been one of my favorite singers, and nothing has changed. He absolutely sang the stew out of those songs, and my girls and I loved it. It was great to visit with him for a little while after the show. It's been so long since we've seen one another, but we agreed that some friendships don't really change, and the best ones can pick right back up where they left off. Here's a photo of the four of us...


Gillian's sixth birthday was the next week, and although we didn't have her actual birthday party until a couple of weeks later, we did have a special visit from Papa Conn. He was on the other coast on business and drove across the state to have dinner and spend the night with us. It was great to have him in town to celebrate the little Bean's birthday.

I'll have a double.

Ah, 'tis the season for all kinds of neat stuff, like last-minute shopping on a Monday night before leaving for Tennessee the next morning. Yes, that was me. I went to exchange a new coat my wonderful husband had bought for me, because after 14.5 years, I have finally figured out that it really is okay to tell him if something he gave me just doesn't work for one reason or another. So there I was in the store, replacement coat and a few other things in hand, kind of wandering around looking for a thing or two on my still-need-to-get list, when I overheard one half (or maybe three fourths, at the rate this woman was talking) of a cell phone conversation.

Sidebar: This is so not the point of this post, but one thing this conversation brought to my mind was just how easy it is to shop and talk, becoming totally engrossed in one's phone conversation, not realizing that everyone within a 30-foot radius is being sucked into your very public communication with the person on the other end. Have you ever slapped your phone shut at the end of just such a conversation in the middle of a store and been instantly confronted by a new kind of quiet, one that let's you know, by contrast, that you were definitely NOT using your inside voice while discussing your friend's most recent personal fiascotragedycrisisissue? I hate it when that happens . . . so why has it happened to me more than once? Anyway . . .

So this lady was talking on her cell phone. I was minding my own business, looking at picture frames. I wasn't trying to hear what she was saying. I wasn't prying into her business, or the business of her friend Pam, about whom she was talking. I didn't need an update. I don't even know Pam. But here's what her friend (name unknown) said to the other person who knows Pam:

"Oh, Pam? . . . Yeah, she's doing really well. . . . You know she had a double vasec-, um, a double vasectom- . . . right, uh huh . . . She's doing great! . . . "

You know how every once in a while you get one of those emails where you have to answer a bunch of questions about yourself, and sometimes one of them is "If you could meet anyone in the world, living or dead, who would it be?" Well, I'm revising my list. Here's the updated version:

1. My Aunt Sara
2. Sting
3. Pam (that lady who had a double vasectomy)

More Fun with MacBook

Raw Intellect, Part Two

Okay, I'm not kidding about this stuff. I mean it. Not making it up. Today I'm wearing this really big necklace . . .


See, I told ya. Anyway, at the bus loop at the end of the day, I told some of my friends that it was made from a piece of a space shuttle re-entry tile. One of the Florida souvenirs you can't get at any old gas station on I-75. Of course, that's not really true, so my friends just laughed because they knew it was a joke.

One of my students, on the other hand . . .

Well, earlier in the day I told my class it could stop a bullet (and that could actually be true, because, well, LOOK at it. But probably not.). A few minutes later, one of the little lambs asked softly, "Mrs. Byrd, is your necklace really bulletproof?"

I gotta get that kid a sign.

Facebook

I thought of a few other names for Facebook:

"Everybody says this is soooo much better than myspace" Book

"Need to get something important done? I'm so NOT on the Case" Book

"I have so many friend requests, I can't keep up the Pace" Book

"I must have left my self-control in some really obscure Place" Book

Did you just hear that mournful chime? That was the death knell of the last hour of my life. Curse you, Facebook!

Raw Intellect

Here's a beauty from one of my fourth grade lambs today. And I quote...

"Mrs. Byrd, does the free food cost any money?"

Looks like we're going to have to skip all the parties right before Christmas break and really buckle down. Apparently I need to learn 'em some stuff.

Fun with MacBook